Food

There is a lot to say about food, and a lot of attention has been given to this in the media recently. The main principles boild down to: Local, seasonal, organic, reducemeat and dairy, eliminate seafood, compost.

Food waste is a huge contributor to home carbon emissions, HCC is looking into a food waste scheme. In the meantime, you could build or invest in a hotbin - when they are up to speed, they compost all food waste, including animal waste. The community fridge in Ringwood and OLIO app (national) are great ways to share food that is near expiry that you arent going to use, or pick things up for free!

The village veg endeavours to source loacal and seasonal food. Asking them where and how they source their food shows that their consumers care. Some local farms include New Forest Fruit and IOW tomatoes.

Riverford organic deliver nationally, and have an incredibly detailed and ambitious net zero plan, which includes regenerating soils and protecting species.

The Naked Pantry is a refill shop in New Milton. They source all their products from wholesalers who score top marks on the ethical consumer magazine’s independent analysis, and source locally as much as possible. Wholesellers such as Suma have excellent fair trade and environmental operation policies, including offsetting their transport emissions and collecting and reusing all packaging.

Meat and dairy - meat or dairy from grass fed, local animals is best. There has been some very in depth research over the balance between the emissions from animals (methane) compared to the amount they are able to help with carbon sequestration into the soils. The beef and dairy industry has a footprint twice that of Japan, due to methane emisions, deforestation to grow soy feed and waste. Similarly, meat alternatives based on soy need to be checked that they are from sustainable agriculture. Look out for cultured meat!

Local meat and dairy - ferndene farm shop, Danestream farm shop, Rockpool cheese. Many cheeses from Rockpool are from regenerative, organic smallholding farms and they are planning to stock tasty vegan cheeses too. Duchy organic at Waitrose also claims to be grass-fed and carbon minimal.

Seafood - Oceans are the planets largest carbon sink (IPCC, 2019). Marine ecosystems are complex, and crucial for sequestering carbon. Current industrial fishing practices are destroying marine ecostystems and numbers of fish at alarming rates. Without the fish, ecosystems and their carbon sequestration potential fails.

The WWF suggests sustainably farmed fish as a climate-friendly alternative to wild fish and is campaigning for tighter regulatory standards to support this. Verveine fish market sources as much fish as possible locally, much is caught off the Faroe Isles.

Why so expensive?

This is a frustration I hear a lot, and one I feel myself. When studying Fair Trade and development at University, we learnt that in the majority of industrial processes, many human and most environmental costs are outsourced; ie. paid by the community rather than companies. This is where we hear about apalling working conditions, unchecked and unmonitored pollution of air, water and land. If wages were fair, and environmental standards met, everything would cost a lot more. Companies such as Riverford are very transparent about their costs, and are delivering excellent products with excellent human and environmental care at the lowest cost possible.